XFLOW - Solution Export from XFLOW to EnSight Format

Last Updated September 6, 2012Kevin Colburn, CEI

XFLOW (http://www.xflow-cfd.com/) has recently added some preliminary capability to export the results to EnSight Case Gold format. Currently the export process still has some caveats and operations that should be made aware to those that are trying to utilize this capability. Here are the known requirements and caveats at this time:

1. The user must be using XFLOW 2012 in order to have the ability to Export to EnSight format.

2. Within the XFLOW 2012 releases, there are 3 different "builds" so far this year. Build 85, 86, 87.Build 85 had the first available export to EnSight. It was an early release.Build 86 has a slightly improved export (but still poor in my definition). (eg vectors written out as vectors, rather than just 3 scalars that you have to combine).Build 87 was released end of August, and has the same export routine as Build 86.

3. The export routine still only exports typically a single block domain, with no surface information, parts, or "nice" way to visualize the surface. In addition, since the grid exists for both the inside (solid), and the outside (fluid) at all times. Variables do end up getting averaged across these solid zones, so the variable display near the "surfaces" of the geometry may not be correct.

4. As the domain is a single large block of elements, there is no easy method to either visualize the surface, nor analyze/query/plot the surface information.

5. They have (in some exports) included the surface as a "stl part" as a separate .geo file. This part is just an STL type surface, has no relation to discretization, nor does it have any variables associated with it. It is basically an STL surface for reference.

6. MSC have been given a list of items to help improve the "completeness" of the export to EnSight. At the time of writing, these items have yet to be implemented into their export process.